King Alfreds Way FKT 15:44:38
King Alfreds Way, KAW FKT, Will Weynberg
Background
I have ridden bikes for years, but recently I have become very aware that I have an ability to just ride all day. This was further backed up last year when completing the double South Downs Way ride in under 24 hours. I rode the KAW a couple of years ago over a couple of days with a good group of friends and ever since that ride I have always had in the back of my mind that one day I was going to ride the whole route in a day. Fast forward to a few weeks ago, I have had a good few months of back to back training and I was beginning to feel really strong on the bike after the winter. This is where the dream and reality became aligned.
Prep
I have a Canyon Grizl di2 bike, but I knew I wanted to make the bike more suited to my needs on a bike. This is where Forwards CC came in. Me and Ian sat down to talk about what we could do to make my perfect bike. His knowledge and expertise was vital. Ian rebuilt my bike, we changed the handlebars to 40cm bars. Put my road bike saddle on the bike, and did a whole bike fit to get me dialed into the bike. I have never felt better on the bike. In the past Ian has also fitted a rotor inspider and we fitted this with 50/34 Q rings.
The Ride
As I left Winchester my only goal was to get back to Winchester. I was fully aware of all the times and speeds of the FKT, but foremost in my mind was getting back. In theory I thought it was achievable but 16 hours felt a long time away and a lot of time for everything to go wrong. I set off on my time schedule and I was going to stick to this until all the wheels fell off the wagon, but this moment never came. I knew I had to basically not stop to beat the record. The best way that I thought I could achieve this was to fuel solely on Beta fuel. No café stops no shop stops, just 10 packets of beta fuel and multiple chews and gels. I knew from past long hot rides by the 4 th hour I wouldn’t be able to eat any solid foods anyway so I thought I was missing out on much. Fuelling was perfect went through a period of a couple of hours at around hour 10 where I struggled to take any fuel on board but I got through this and then was able to fuel again.
There is something about buzzing through the countryside on a solo epic. At no point did I get bored or feel like time was going slowly. The route itself is very varied which makes it very interesting, my favourite sections are some of the forest areas around Farnham, and some of the Ridgeway (not the beginning section). I got back to Winchester in a time of 15 hours 44 minutes and 38 seconds beating the current record by only around 8 minutes.
Massive thank you to Ian for the bike build.
Words, Will Weynberg
